Are You Afraid of the Dark? [Worm AU fanfic]

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Part Thirteen: Tempting Murphy

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @GW_Yoda and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Coil

Thomas Calvert was not a happy man.

In one stroke, the Dark had destroyed his base, something he had sunk years of work and tens of millions of dollars' worth of resources into. At the same time, he'd ensured that the survivors of Calvert's mercenary group would cut ties forever (which was preferable to them shooting Calvert in the head, but that was the only outcome it was preferable to). Calvert had put a lot of money into training, paying and housing them, too.

And it was all down the drain, thanks to the Dark.

Wait, no. There's someone else who's even more to blame.

It was Tattletale who had assured him that there was no such person, that someone claiming to be the Dark had been killed in a botched bank robbery … and that it would be a good idea to have one of his mercenaries masquerade as the imaginary bogeyman. He'd believed her because he'd wanted to believe her, and it had cost Frankoff his life and Calvert basically everything he'd built up as Coil. Except his bank balance, of course: that was as healthy as ever.

Knowing considerably more about the Dark's capabilities than he had before, Calvert shivered. The only reason I'm alive right now is that Tattletale doesn't know who I am. He had zero doubt that if she'd had access to that information, she would've contacted the Dark herself and outed him in a heartbeat.

This meant he had to get to her, sooner rather than later. The more time she had to put the pieces together, the more likely she would be to figure it out eventually. That was the 'pragmatic' aspect.

Then there was the 'revenge' aspect: nobody fucks with me and lives. It had been one of his core values since his days in the PRT. On the one hand, it ensured that anyone who did try to screw him over got what they deserved; on the other, it was satisfying as hell.

The problem would be actually getting to her. She rarely went anywhere without one or more of the Undersiders accompanying her. And even with his power to call on, it was going to be hard to get past them and either kill or kidnap her, especially with his mercenaries gone.

He did have another base in the city, a couple of warehouses he owned under the name of a shell company, where he kept surplus supplies and equipment. A second underground facility would've been preferable, but the logistics involved in having just one constructed under the nose of the PRT had been touch-and-go; two would've been out of the question.

However, it wasn't like he could just summon her there. With her perceptive nature, she was bound to have figured out how he'd just lost most of the power to project his will in Brockton Bay, and be seeking to cut ties altogether. She might even have realised that he knew of her perfidy. If he tried to call her in, he doubted she would so much as reply, let alone show up at any given rendezvous point.

Which just meant that he was going to have to fall back on his other resources.

"At ease," he told the troopers in the room. "Our mission will be relatively simple in concept, though it may end up being complex in execution. I've acquired actionable intel on the location of the home base of the Undersiders …"

After all, what was the point of being a strike squad commander if he couldn't abuse the position for his own gain?


Death's Head

I was just putting the eggs and bacon on the table when Dad came downstairs again. To keep Chewie from dogging my every step (pun intended) I'd given him a small slice of bacon early on, and he was wrestling with it under the table, emitting tiny, adorable growls. "So, I had a look at that other file Tattletale left for us," I said as he sat down.

From the way his head came up, I had his attention, but that didn't stop him from loading his plate. "I'm listening."

"It doesn't tell us precisely who Coil is, or how to find him," I began carefully. "I suspect if she'd known that, she would've highlighted it in big bold underline caps. The tone I get is that she despises him with the fury of a thousand burning suns. But what she did give us is a breakdown of his power, and a suspicion that he might have connections with the PRT."

His eyes narrowed, and I fully expected him to ask more about the PRT thing, but he didn't. "He has powers? That's news to me."

"According to her, he does." I tapped the sheet I'd printed out. "It's all here, but the breakdown is that he's psychic."

"Like she's supposed to be?" He took a forkful of egg.

"Differently. He's a precog, but he can map out two sets of probabilities at once. Whichever one he dies first in, he lives out the other one. According to her, it's totally subconscious. He just experiences one timeline while seeing what happens when he makes different choices in the other."

His eyes went distant. "I can think of a few times that could have come in very handy, back in the day. And she's sure about that?"

I shrugged. "I get the impression she's the sort of person who's sure about everything until they're proven wrong, and sometimes even then. So yeah, she's sure. Is she correct? That's the real question."

"Hm. I see your point." He speared some bacon with his fork. "It would explain why he's so hard to pin down. People have tried. So, it's only two timelines?"

"As far as she knows, yeah." I re-checked the printout. "Says here that sometimes she's been talking to him, and he's pulled a fact out of the air that he didn't know previously. And sometimes she's been absolutely certain that he was going to hurt her, and he did nothing of the sort."

Dad nodded slowly. "That tracks. Talk in one timeline, torture in the other, and drop the 'torture' one after he's done. Most people would never even know that anything untoward had happened."

A little startled, I stared at him. "Torture? Don't you think that's going just a little over the top?"

His chuckle was dry and entirely devoid of humour. "Taylor, honey, how many people do you personally know who would turn down the chance to do something horrific to people they didn't like, if there was zero chance of being caught?"

My pause to think of a coherent counter-argument went on for way too long. He smiled as though his point had been made for him—which it basically had—then went on eating breakfast.

I was halfway through mine before I spoke again. "So, now that we know Coil's powers, do you think we'll be able to get to him? I mean, he sounds really hard to pin down."

He smiled; or at least, he showed his teeth. "Get to him? If I set the right trap, he'll come to us."

I leaned back in my chair. "Okay, I can't wait to hear this one."

"Well, you see, it hinges around two things …"


Grue

Lisa was twitchy as fuck, and Brian didn't know why. When he showed up to the lair in the morning as per usual, Rachel was grooming her dogs (which meant there was dog hair all over the floor at her end of the room), Alec was well into his first gaming session of the day (with a half-eaten breakfast burrito beside him) and Lisa was hunched over her laptop, scouring the internet for information. This was so different to her usual smug, self-assured perusal that even Rachel seemed to register it.

"Okay," he said, after ten minutes had passed without her coming up for air. "Spill it. What's the matter?"

She blinked and seemed to become aware of his presence for the first time. "Shit, Brian, when did you get here?"

He frowned, more concerned than ever. "Ten minutes ago. You said hello and told me to make coffee if I wanted." Which was another point of weirdness, given that he'd been carrying a takeaway cup at the time.

"Sorry, yeah." She ran her fingers through her already disarranged hair. "I'm a bit distracted."

Alec let out a bark of laughter without looking away from the screen. "Sure, and the Titanic had a bit of trouble with that iceberg. Just tell him the truth. You've lost a step."

Lisa's eyes narrowed. "I will delete your saved files."

"Fine. You tell him. I'm out." He reapplied his full attention to the game.

Brian sat down alongside her. "Okay, so what's really going on?"

She huffed out an aggravated sigh and sat back. "Okay, you know how the Dark came here looking for information about Coil?"

That was something Brian would never, ever forget. "Yes …?"

"And you know how we agreed that his favour to us would be to out the Empire?"

She seemed to be deliberately drawing this out. He restrained his impatience; once she got to the point, he would know what was going on. "Again, I was right here in the room, so yes."

"So, I sent him two bits of information. The location to Coil's base, and the particulars of Coil's power." She paused, biting her lip. "And last night, the Dark blew up the base."

Brian blinked. "Damn. Okay. I'm impressed. Not surprised—I know just how good he is—but impressed. And Coil?"

This time, she grimaced. "I'm pretty sure he wasn't there at the time. Given his powers."

He imagined pulling teeth would be like this. "Which are …?"

She looked up at him; even sitting side by side, he bulked over her. "Essentially? The ability to be in two places at once, then deciding which one he wants to be in when trouble starts."

It only took him a second or so to figure that one out. "So, even if he was in his base when the Dark came calling, if he was also elsewhere at the time, he could just choose to be there instead."

"Exactly. And he's a paranoid bastard at the best of times. I can't see him not taking that precaution. So, he's still alive. Which is a real problem."

When she didn't immediately clarify her statement, Brian frowned. "Okay, now you've lost me. Sure, you're the one who gave the Dark that information, but how the hell would he backtrace it to you? I mean, the Dark is the Dark. It's not like he'd be telling Coil how he knew where the base was."

Lisa shoved her hands through her hair again, disarranging it even further. "Promise you won't freak?"

Where the entire previous conversation had failed to do so, that one question sent a chill down Brian's spine. "Lisa. What did you do?"

Taking a deep breath, Lisa twisted her clasped hands against each other. "Coil … is our secret boss. I might have told him to do something that would fuck him over. Deliberately."

Rachel missed a brush stroke. Alec turned his head, his controller forgotten. Brian leaned forward, looming over Lisa on purpose now. "Why the fuck didn't you … never mind that. What did you do?"

Lisa grimaced. "He called me, before. When the Dark was just starting to show up. Asked me about the Dark. So … I might have told him that the Dark didn't exist, and he could set up his own fake Dark and cash in on the reputation."

Brian didn't even have to ask why. "So the Dark would kill him." He paused, finding the need to ask the question anyway. "Why? He's our boss. He pays us just to sit here until he needs us to go rob someplace."

"You guys got a choice." Lisa's expression twisted in distaste. "Or you think you did, anyway. He pulled on your levers, and you did what he asked. I didn't have a lever, so he put a gun in my face. I'm almost certain that if I hadn't cooperated, I'd be strapped to a chair in his base with an IV in my arm, answering questions twenty-four/seven."

"And now the Dark's blown up his base. What happened to the fake Dark? He kill him, too?" Brian was definitely starting to get a bad feeling about all this.

She shook her head. "Funnily enough, no. Oni Lee got him. But the Dark got Oni Lee."

"So, Lung's gonna be pissed too." Brian shook his head. "Joy. And Coil's gonna be blaming you for losing his base. Which is kind of justified, you have to admit." He caught Lisa's twitch. "What?"

"Remember, I actually did send the Dark the location of the base." She shrugged. "I want Coil dead, sooner rather than later. Seemed like the best way to do it."

"Okay." Brian ran his hands over his face. "So, just to make things clear and up front, you gave Coil lethally bad info about the Dark, then you fed the Dark real info about Coil, but he managed to survive your proxy assassination attempt anyway, due to his powers. Which means that if he's got the ability to make one plus one equal two …"

Lisa shook her head. "He's paranoid enough to make that connection anyway. And he knows exactly how I feel about him. But I'm pretty sure he doesn't have his mercenaries anymore, so even if he showed up here looking for trouble, it'll be just him." However, she still looked uncertain.

Brian knew what that look meant, from long association with both Lisa and Aisha. "There's something problematic you're still not telling me. Spill."

"Um …" Lisa drew a deep breath. "Coil may or may not have connections to the PRT. Some of the stuff he's done, some of the information he's supplied, adds up to more than just him being tricky with his powers. There's real substance there."

"Wait." Alec, who'd been trying to return to his game despite the distraction, finally abandoned it and put the controller down. "You're saying our secret boss, who's actually Coil, also has an in with the PRT? When exactly were you going to share this with us?"

Lisa shrugged helplessly. "So long as we were working for him, and I didn't have a chance to break away … never, really. But I saw my chance and took it. Do you blame me?"

Interestingly enough, Alec slowly shook his head. "No, not really. So, what happens now?"

"That's what I've been beating my head against a brick wall for, since I found out that his base blew up last night." Lisa puffed out a breath to shift an errant strand of hair out of her face. "Until I find out for sure otherwise, I'm assuming that he's still alive, that he knows I arranged this, and that he's not just going to walk away and call it quits. I just don't have enough information to figure out what he's going to do and when he's going to do it. Thus, the deep-dive."

"He knows about this place." Brian wasn't asking it as a question.

"Yeah."

"And my apartment?" He'd only recently moved in, but he rather liked the décor.

"Yeah."

"Aisha? Dad?" He paused, then added for completeness, "Celia?"

"Yup, yup, and yup."

"Fuck." This was bad. This was really, really bad. "Okay, why are you still here? Why haven't you already just walked out the door?"

The look she gave him said plain as day that she'd been asking herself the same questions. "Basically? All my stuff is here. I can't carry it all at once. And if I started packing, someone would ask questions."

He sighed, knowing the rest of it through long experience with his sister. "And you're not in trouble until you tell someone what you've done wrong, yeah?"

Again, Alec interjected unexpectedly. "Well, to be honest, that's not a bad life strategy. I've done that a lot, and gotten away with it."

"No offense, Alec, but I wouldn't use you as a role model if my life depended on it." Brian stood up and glanced out the window. There wasn't anything untoward to be seen, but that meant nothing.

"None taken." Alec shrugged. "I wouldn't either, if I had a choice."

Brian wasn't listening. "Okay, everyone. Grab whatever you absolutely can't do without. We're leaving. Now."

Nobody moved. He looked around, to see them all staring at him. Lowering his brows, he gave Lisa a meaningful look. She reluctantly shut her laptop.

"Why?" asked Rachel bluntly.

"I'm in the middle of a game, here," Alec objected. "And I never told anyone shit about Coil."

"We were all in the room when Lisa agreed to look into him for the Dark." Brian put his hands on his hips. "I don't recall anyone disagreeing. I certainly didn't."

By now, Alec was digging his heels in from sheer stubbornness. "But we didn't know then. He's not gonna come after us for that, is he?"

Brian didn't answer; instead, he looked at Lisa and raised his eyebrows in a silent query.

After a moment, she sagged. "He totally would. He's not just a paranoid control freak, he's a vindictive paranoid control freak."

"Oh. Well, crap. Whose idea was it to sign up with him, anyway?" Alec seemed to be doing his best to distance himself from any responsibility in the matter.

"Hers." Unexpectedly, Rachel spoke up. "Lisa was the one who spoke for him when we were recruited." She glared at Lisa. "You could've told us what he was really like."

"Did you maybe forget the bit about 'a gun to my head'?" Lisa shook the head in question. "Remember what I said about the chair and the IV. I had to stay free, pretend to cooperate, and maybe get people around me who could help me get out if push came to shove. But in the meantime, I couldn't tell you a damn thing in case he questioned you in the other timeline so nobody knew about it." She gestured around the room. "And anyway, you've all done well for yourselves so far. Don't pretend you haven't."

"All that aside." Brian did his best to bring the discussion back on topic. "He'll be gunning for Lisa now, and we're all in the line of fire. We need to go someplace he won't know to look for us, so we can regroup and plan our next move. And we need to do it now."

Brutus raised his head and growled. Lisa paled. "Shit, he's here. Whoever he's brought with him is outside right now."

Brian had a sudden moment of realisation. "If it's not his mercenaries, then it must be the PRT."

"Fuck." Alec jumped up from where he was sitting. "And what's the bet that whoever he's got under his orders aren't also on his personal payroll?"

Lisa shook her head. "No bet."

Brian looked over at Rachel. "You know what we've got to do. Once we're up on the rooftops—"

"No." Lisa looked out the window. "I just heard a chopper incoming. The rooftops aren't gonna cut it."

There was a crash downstairs. Brian didn't hear a rush of yelling officers, so he didn't think the door had given way yet, but it was only a matter of time. The chopper was audible by now, and Brian knew they were screwed no matter what they tried.

Then Lisa's eyes opened wide, as though a lightbulb had just flicked on over her head. Hauling her phone out of her pocket, she hastily woke it up, just as another crash echoed up from below. This time, Brian heard the yelling voices. Rotors thundered overhead.

Lisa pointed in the direction of the stairs. "Delay them!"

Brian had no idea what her plan was, but anything was better than nothing. He extended both hands toward the doorway into the main warehouse and began generating darkness. It flooded out of the room and began spilling out over the spiral staircase.

He heard the change in tone as the PRT troopers encountered the darkness. They couldn't see a thing, and they didn't like it. Their lack of radio comms also had to be messing with them. But they weren't likely to back off. Behind his back, Lisa was speaking urgently into her phone.

Boots crashed on the sheet metal roof overhead, and he looked up. A moment later, he realised he'd allowed himself to forget that helicopters could do more than hover and harass fugitives; they could also carry troopers. And then black-armoured forms descended from above, outside the windows, dangling on black ropes.

Heavy boots slammed inward and the glass shattered into a million pieces. He ceased generating darkness and raised his hands, mainly because at least two assault rifles were aimed directly at him. While his darkness was good at many things, stopping bullets was not one of them. Alec and Rachel didn't put up any resistance either, though the latter seriously looked like she wanted to do something violent. Her dogs, at her command, were lying down, ears flat to their heads.

Lisa was the only one the PRT troopers weren't flex-cuffing and forcing to their knees. She stood with guns aimed at her, holding her phone like a magic talisman to ward off the forces of evil. "I need to speak with your commanding officer! I need to speak with your commanding officer!"

The darkness had died away by now, and a fresh set of boots sounded on the steps before entering the loft. Brian couldn't see anything of the newcomer from the knees up, because his head was being held down by the trooper behind him, but he knew who it had to be. Coil.

"Hi, Commander Calvert," Lisa said almost chirpily. "It's for you."


The Dark

Danny had just finished explaining his plan for using the Undersiders (and Tattletale in particular) as bait to draw Coil out when his phone rang. He frowned and took it out, then raised his eyebrows when he saw the number. Swiping to answer it, he put it on speaker. "You have the Dark."

Tattletale's voice, when it came out of the speaker, was not nearly as calm and composed as it had been the last time she'd called him. In addition, he could hear the distinct sound of a helicopter in the background. "Yeah, hi, it's me. Um, I know I've got no reason to expect you to do me any favours, but we're seriously in the shit, and, um, you're still pissed at Coil for setting up a fake Dark, yeah?"

"Yes. However, you're the one who told him to do it. So, tell me why I should care." It was amazing how often a façade of indifference got him what he wanted.

"Okay, so, the very next name I say will be Coil's secret identity. That's gotta be worth something, right?" She was speaking rapidly now.

Danny added two and two together, and came up with a very interesting four. "He's using his PRT assets to raid your base. I see. Yes, it will be worth something. Give him the phone when he comes in."

"Oh, thank God, thank you." She was almost sobbing with relief.

"Don't thank me yet."

As glass shattered in the background, she stopped talking to him—it was possible that she hadn't even heard his final comment—and started shouting the same phrase over and over. 'I need to speak with your commanding officer! I need to speak with your commanding officer!'

He waited, reconstructing in his mind the sequence of events that was happening at the other end of the call. There were no shots, which meant neither the Undersiders nor the dogs had done anything stupid. All he heard were commands of 'On your knees! Head down!' with Tattletale still repeating her mantra in the middle of it all.

And then, she said something different. "Hi, Commander Calvert. It's for you."

From the rustling sound, someone had taken the phone from her. "Hello?" It was a man's voice, very much confident and in command. If pushed, Danny might have assigned a touch of arrogance to it.

"Hello, Coil. Are you afraid of the Dark?" There was a time for tiptoeing around the subject, and a time to meet it head-on. This was the latter.

The pause that greeted his question assured him that he was speaking to the right person. There was no 'um', no sound of confusion, just a solid silence. Then: "I'm sorry, you have the wrong person."

"No. I don't." Danny had been re-familiarising himself with the PRT officer lineup, and now it paid off. "Strike squad commander Thomas Calvert, aka Coil. Well done, by the way. Balancing the duties of a PRT officer with the demands of a supervillain's life can't have been easy. However, to business. You're currently in the Undersiders' loft, and your men have them at gunpoint, including Tattletale. This whole raid was set up so you could either kill her or get her back under your power. No, don't talk. None of that was a question. Here's the question. They're under my protection, so when I tell you to release them—including Tattletale—then leave town altogether, will you do it … or are we going to have a problem?"

This time, the silence had a whole other quality to it. He'd deliberately used Calvert's whole name, so the man would know he had no leeway in that direction. I know exactly who you are, so let's cut the shit. It could've been his imagination, but he fancied he could hear Calvert's sphincters slamming shut on the other end of the call.

From the way Calvert cleared his throat, it had suddenly gone very dry indeed. "Ah … you know she's the one—"

"—who advised you that I didn't exist, and suggested the idiotic plan of setting up your own version of me? Yes, I'm aware. That's between me and her. You're the one who actually went through with it. So, the question still stands. Are you going to release them, unharmed, and leave town, or are we going to have a problem?"


Coil

Since acquiring his powers, Thomas Calvert had assumed that he would never again have to suffer the problem of being on the horns of a dilemma. Unfortunately, it appeared his assumption had just bitten him on the ass, hard. He'd already split time once on this operation as a matter of course—anything could go wrong at any time, especially when it was his own precious hide in the field—so he had no fallback when the Dark presented his ultimatum.

That it was the Dark, Calvert had zero doubt. Nobody else could project that level of sheer menace over a phone call, and the man knew far too many details about what was going on. Why the hell is he protecting her?

Not that he could ask the question so bluntly; nor did he really need to. It was clear to him what the Dark wanted her for. Her Thinker talents were a valuable commodity, and the fabled assassin was simply striking while the iron was hot. Or perhaps … did he put her up to this in the first place? To force me out of town?

Whether that was the case or not, he had little in the way of choice … well, that wasn't precisely true. There was always the 'no-go' timeline, where this operation had never been launched. But it was still technically possible to win in this timeline, so he decided to keep it open for the moment. "How long do I have? I have obligations."

"You have a week. You will stay away from Tattletale that entire time, and you'll send nobody else after her." The call ended abruptly.

Calvert lowered the phone and let out a ragged breath. Tattletale was looking at him expectantly—she'd know what had happened, of course—and he handed the phone back to her. He had to force himself to open his mouth and utter the next words, but they had to be said.

"Stand down. Let them go. We're leaving." Every syllable tasted of ash on his tongue. He hated to admit defeat and simply walk away from her, even as that irritatingly smug look blossomed on her face. Worse still was the silent (and not so silent) disbelief from his men. Where they thought he couldn't hear them, they were exchanging low-voiced comments with their radios off. Taking a deep breath, he raised his voice. "I said, stand down."

Trading glances, taking their time as though waiting for him to rescind the order, the troopers released the Undersiders from their bonds. For their part, the teen villains did little more than rub their wrists. Their looks of disbelief were directed at Tattletale, most likely attempting to divine how she'd managed to pull that impossible rabbit out of a non-existent hat.

One by one, his men exited the loft; the chopper had moved away on receiving the stand-down order, so they would all have to leave via ground transport. He was the last out, if only to ensure that none of his men did anything to get him killed. At the doorway, he looked over at Tattletale. "You'll tell him?" That I did what he said, he didn't have to add.

She nodded, her smug expression infuriating him almost to the point that he did something regrettable. "Sure, I'll do that. Bye." It was as much a reminder that he should be leaving as it was a farewell.

As he descended the spiral staircase, his jaw was clenched so hard that his teeth were grinding against one another. He took small solace in the fact that the metal door's lock was ruined, and the door itself was hanging off one hinge; the Undersiders would have to find a new base now or undertake serious repairs to that and the window, occasioning no little inconvenience. Good.

"Sir." It was Sergeant Hardacre. A good, solid NCO, he knew his place and how to handle his men. While he was scrupulous to a fault when it came to everything that didn't involve Calvert's business, and had never actively participated in any illicit activity, he'd taken bribes more than once to look the other way. "May I ask what happened up there? The men will have questions, and I'd prefer to have something to tell them from you, rather than let them speculate."

This was one of the few instances, Calvert decided, that the unvarnished truth would serve better than any lie. "Tell them that we were warned off by the Dark." He saw the shock of understanding in Hardacre's eyes. "Dismissed."

Hardacre nodded. "Thank you, sir." He saluted, then turned away once Calvert had returned the gesture. Calvert knew he'd spread the word, and nothing more would be said about it. The stories about the Dark would've been filtering through the PRT rank and file just as thoroughly in the criminal underworld, and nobody wanted to mess with the guy who'd offed Cricket and Hookwolf as casually as one of them might swat a fly.

It rankled him considerably to be seen to capitulate without even attempting to negotiate, but again: it was the Dark. Given his prior transgression, he was certain that anything other than immediate compliance carried a strong chance of being shot in the head at some unexpected moment. And the Dark never, ever missed.

However, as he climbed on board the transport to head back to the PRT building, he wasn't dwelling on his humiliating surrender.

He was working out how he would get Tattletale anyway.


Death's Head

"Wow, that's a thing." I shook my head, impressed despite myself at how well Dad had handled the situation. "Think he'll stick to it?"

Dad chuckled humourlessly. "Short term, yes. He likes living. Long term, not a hope in hell. The man's constitutionally incapable of letting bygones be bygones. I'd bet long odds that he's doing his best to figure out how to get around me even now."

That sounded about right. "And with his powers … how do you second-guess a man like that, anyway?"

"More easily than you'd think." Dad raised a finger. "We already know one fact that he doesn't."

I frowned, trying to figure out what he meant. "That we know about his powers?"

He held up his hand, waggling it from side to side. "He's probably guessed that Tattletale filled us in about them. No, it's something else."

Mystified, I shook my head. "Okay, I'm lost. What do we know that he doesn't?"

"This is the timeline that he keeps." He made a gesture that was probably supposed to indicate the world. "This is all we have to worry about. Our counterparts in his other potential timeline will take care of themselves. All we have to do is keep Tattletale alive, and kill Coil when we get the chance."

I raised my finger in turn. "So, we're back to your original plan, then? Using the Undersiders as bait?"

"With a few alterations to account for potential use of his powers." Dad had his notebook out now, and was writing something in it. I'd seen him doing that before, whenever anything useful occurred to him. Snapping it closed, he slid it back into his pocket. "Right now, we need to work out a location unknown to Coil that the Undersiders can be moved to, then see about getting them there."

"That's something else I was wondering about." I tilted my head slightly, figuring out how to ask the question. "Why are you so concerned about their welfare all of a sudden? I mean, I understand the whole 'nailing Coil to the wall' aspect, but putting them under our protection? That's a long term thing, not short term."

"It is, yes." He nodded approvingly. "Back in the day, I had your mom to watch my back. We had a teamwork, a bond, that I doubt I'll ever experience again. You come close with your bugs but, in today's Brockton Bay, we need all the help we can get. Coil had the Undersiders working for him for various reasons; in Tattletale's case, that was fear. While fear works well in the short term for getting someone to cooperate, as you saw today, in the long term it changes to anger and resentment. So, we're not going that route with them. If they opt to work with us, it'll be because I gave them the option to, not because I coerced them into it."

He'd lost me again. "I thought the whole thing about being the Dark is that everyone fears you?"

"Close, but not quite." He grinned suddenly. "They respect me. Fear comes into it if they've done something they think will get them on my bad side. I don't go out murdering people willy-nilly. That was Jack Slash's thing. It's why I told him to get the hell out of town, why he tried to pull shenanigans, and why your mom blew out his kneecaps. People don't lie awake worrying that I'm going to come to town to personally murder them. They just take care not to do anything that will cause me to come murder them."

"And then there's Coil, who's probably already looking into ways of going back on his word." I couldn't understand people like that.

"Well, yes." His grin returned. "As your mom's father used to say, 'some folks just gotta pee on the electric fence'."

I rolled my eyes. "From what I recall of him, he would totally say that."

"He would, and did." He helped me clear away the breakfast plates, then turned to me. "So, ready to go?"

"Sure thing. Here, Chewie!" He bounded over to me, claws skittering on the tired linoleum, and happily stood still for his leash to be attached. "I'll just take him for a walk around the back yard, then meet you at the car."

"Sounds like a plan."


Tattletale

Brian was staring at Lisa, but then again, so was Alec. Rachel was just busy making sure her dogs were intact and unhurt. Nobody had kicked or shot them that Lisa knew of, but it was always good to make sure.

"Okay." Alec spoke first. "Suppose you explain exactly how you pulled that off? Because the PRT does not just lower their guns and walk away."

"You were talking to the Dark, weren't you?" Brian was connecting the dots faster. "And that was Coil." He blinked slowly, then the rest of the picture must have come into focus. "What exactly did you promise the Dark that had him get us out of the shit? I thought we were out of favours."

Lisa nodded, still feeling shaky inside, but getting better with every breath. She wanted to drop onto the sofa, but there was broken glass all over it. "We were. He wants Coil dead, so I gave him Coil's name."

"Hah." Alec said it as a word, not as actual laughter. "So, when you gave Coil the phone, he … just told Coil to fuck off, we're off-limits?"

"Essentially, yeah." Lisa carefully stepped away from where more broken glass still littered the floor, and leaned against the wall. Her heart rate was only just now starting to slow down, and she had a fluttery feeling in her lungs. "I honestly didn't know if he was going to take me up on it, and I'm certain that I'm well and truly on his radar now. You guys probably are, too."

Rachel looked up from where she was kneeling next to her dogs. Angelica licked her face, but she didn't seem to notice. "Coil's not going to stop. He'll keep trying to get us. To get Tattletale."

Lisa nodded, having come to exactly the same conclusion. "He can't bring the PRT in again. They're too loud. Anything he does against me has to be totally deniable, so I vanish or die in some mysterious fashion while he's conspicuously doing something elsewhere."

Brian frowned and shook his head. "Why? You don't have any more dangerous knowledge. Everything Coil was trying to hide, the Dark knows. Why would he come after you now?"

"Because he's a vindictive prick, and he doesn't give up on ideas easily." Lisa tapped the side of her head. "He wants access to my powers, and if he can't have me, then he doesn't want anyone who might be working against him to have me either. Yes, I know that's basically describing a violent ex. Trust me, there are many parallels. Just none of the nice stuff beforehand."

"Good," snarked Alec. "Because I just threw up a little bit in my mouth, just thinking about it."

Brian held up his hand to forestall any more tangents. "Okay, so it's clear that we're in danger here, yeah? We have to move somewhere else. Somewhere that Coil doesn't know about and, I don't know, plant a bomb under the floorboards while we're out. Also, I might need to move my sister and dad to someplace safe until Coil's dealt with."

"What about your mom?" Lisa asked, then regretted it almost immediately as she recalled exactly what Brian's mother was like.

Brian gave her a flat stare. "What about her? She as much as sold Aisha to her boyfriend for the price of a high. If I hadn't gotten there in time …"

"Sorry, sorry. Won't bring it up again." Lisa knew the incident had happened a couple of years ago, but she didn't blame Brian for holding onto the grudge.

"She did, did she?" Alec had met Aisha a couple of times, though she hadn't been brought in on the secret. Now he looked uncharacteristically pensive. "I wonder how much—"

"We are not hiring the Dark to kill my mother," Brian said hastily. "No matter how bad a person she is."

Alec looked at him directly. "Why not?"

Lisa left the incipient argument to slip sandals on, then she fetched the broom and dustpan to clean away the broken glass. When she got back, Alec had downgraded his suggestion to 'maybe blow out her kneecaps'. Brian was still holding out, but he didn't seem to be as totally against the idea as before.

"She's told herself every day that she's a victim, that she can shoot up with whatever because she can't control herself." His thinned lips showed his opinion of this excuse. "If she got her kneecaps blown out, then she'd be in a wheelchair, and she'd lean into the victim mindset ten times as hard."

"And then she could find out what being a victim is really all about." Alec sounded like he still hadn't let go of the idea.

"And get more addicted than ever." Brian was not in favour of it. "I'm just looking to cut her out of my life forever, not give her a reason to actually be the victim. Also, if she died, Dad and I would probably end up being stuck with the funeral costs."

Lisa made a time-out gesture. "Look, I'm sorry I brought up your mom at all. Can we get back to discussing what we're going to do next? Where we're going to go? Because this place is no longer a safe or secure location for us."

Alec shrugged. "Maybe we could ask the Dark." At that moment, Lisa's phone rang. Alec froze. "Kidding," he half-whispered. "I was kidding."

"Maybe stop doing that." Lisa retrieved her phone from her pocket; the caller ID indeed read DARK. "Ah, hi," she said, forcing a smile onto her face. "We're all fine here, thanks to your intervention. Coil didn't like it in the slightest, but he and all his men left anyway. What, ah, what can I do for you?"

"We need to talk. Somers Rock. Bring your team. One hour." The Dark's voice was calm and unruffled as ever. "There's much we need to discuss about your future."

"Okay, uh, we'll be there." Lisa reminded herself to inhale.

"Good. Don't be late." The call ended.

She slowly lowered the phone and looked at the others.

"So, what did he want?" asked Brian, just a shade ahead of Alec.

"To talk. At Somers Rock." Lisa took a deep breath. "About our future."

"Well, shit." Alec's snark was alive and well. "That's not ominous at all."



End of Part Thirteen